In computer operations, it is often necessary to determine why a computer application did not operate as expected. For example, an incorrect result may be provided by the application, the application may require excessive execution time or memory consumption, or the application may otherwise provide operate in an inadequate manner. The result provided by the computer application isn't always helpful in determining what may have occurred in the operation of the computer application.
One process that may be used to determine what occurred in the operation of a computer application is a performance trace. The performance trace may include a process for obtaining the values of the variables used by the application in operation, which may provide clues regarding where problems may be present.
However, in a complex system, a computer application may not be simply running on a particular system, but may rather be required to run on multiple different systems of different types. This type of distributed operation can increase the power and efficiency of operation, allowing the application to utilize each relevant resource in a single overall process, but the distributed application operation also complicates the analysis process if a problem does occur. In this landscape, it is generally not possible to obtain a complete picture of the overall process through a performance trace or similar tool. The systems used by the computer application may be incompatible and may handle their operations in different manners, thereby making it difficult to generate a complete analysis of the application operation.